Brewing small batches of craft beer in a 650 sqft apartment

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Air-lock activity has stopped. Krausen has fallen. Gravity readings are terminal. Brewers everywhere know what this means: time for packaging! The Passion Fruit American Wheat has finished secondary fermentation after a substantial addition of passion fruit juice. Frankly, I am relieved this beer is near process end. The planning and execution of this recipe was … Continue reading →

Last Summer, I was on a English-style kick. I brewed a number of English inspired beers: bitters, IPAs and barleywines. Entering the Fall, I wanted to brew a big, full-bodied dark beer and age it in preparation for the looming Winter weather. Thinking English, I brewed up this Robust Porter, and fermented it using the … Continue reading →

I’m a big fan of all types of stout, especially around March and springtime. For March 2013, I brewed the Big Oatmeal Stout, an oatmeal stout taken to the limits (of the BJCP style guidelines, of course). At 6% ABV, it was quite a tasty beer, and held up with age. For March 2014, I … Continue reading →

I’ve been on a session-style kick lately. Recently, I brewed a 4% ABV session IPA and a 3% ABV session Oatmeal Stout. With each beer, I pushed the ABV lower, so naturally, I was curious to see how low in ABV I could go while making a beer that was flavorful. Essentially, I wanted to … Continue reading →

It’s 2014, and it would seem the Mayan Apocalypse didn’t happen, or at least, it’s slow to start. Either way, the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse Ale is tasting great. Malty and very smooth, this strong ale/winter warmer style was brewed on the night of the 2012 winter solstice, detailed here. This beer was first reviewed after … Continue reading →

Last spring, I submitted a few entries to the 2013 Texas Bluebonnet Brew-off, the largest “single-site” homebrew competition. I did well for my standards, as a number of my beers were “pushed” to the second round. Excitingly enough, my apricot wheat beer, an American-style wheat beer brewed with loads of tasty apricots, won a 3rd … Continue reading →

This is Part 2 of the small batch clone of Fuller’s London Porter! In Part 1, I did some research and recipe design. In summary, the Fuller’s London Porter is a fairly simple recipe. Its key ingredients are a significant portion of brown malt, along with Fuller signature yeast. For part 2, I review both … Continue reading →

One of my favorite English-style beers on the market is Fuller’s London Porter. Smooth, rich, and chocolate-ity, it’s also one of the only commercial beers I have ever tried to clone. Here is my attempt to clone this fantastic beer, and hope my fellow bloggers can learn from this first iteration. In part 1, I … Continue reading →

No matter what time of year, one of my favorite ales to brew is American Pale Ale. There are lots of great commercial examples of APA, and many great recipes for APA on the web. Despite this, I thought I’d share my house APA recipe. It took many iterations to get this recipe just right … Continue reading →

From the brew day last March, finally, here are the tasting notes to my Big Oatmeal Stout (the link to the brew day is here). This one came out great and has been folding up well with age. Coming in at 6% ABV, this beer isn’t that strong across the stout spectrum (Imperial stout, for … Continue reading →